1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a replaceable cartridge for use in a dispenser and, more particularly, to a cartridge adapted to be easily opened to thereby permit reliable and efficient dispensing of the material contained in the cartridge.
2. Prior Art
It has been proposed in the prior art to hold a loose flowable mass of material to be dispensed in a container of a dispenser. In order to expel the material from the container, an expelling or compression force is exerted on a portion of the mass by an arrangement which is operative for moving a compression disc against the mass.
Although such prior art dispensers are generally adequate for their intended purposes they have not proven themselves to be altogether satisfactory for the following reasons:
First of all, the loose flowable mass has a slight tendency to seep through the clearance bounded by the exterior periphery of the compression disc and the inner circumferential wall of the container in which the disc is mounted. Such seepage, although slight, is undesirable because it represents not only a loss in the total amount of material to be dispensed, but also tends to slightly retard the movement of the disc lengthwise along the container. Secondly, the same dispenser cannot efficiently be used with different types of materials. Once one type of material has been held in the container, residual amounts of this material still remain on the inner circumferential wall thereof. This unsanitary environment requires an expensive sterilizing procedure should one wish to refill the container, particularly in cases wherein a different type of material is desired to charge the container. In practice, after full discharge has been completed, a user generally throws away the entire container and, in certain circumstances, the entire dispenser is discarded.
An improved dispenser which overcomes the aforementioned drawbacks of the prior art has been proposed and described in my patent U.S. Pat. No. 3,993,226 which discloses an arrangement in which the problems of mass seepage, retardation of the movement of the disc, and expensive sterilizing procedures have been substantially reduced.